Apple to Pay $533 Million USD for Patent Infringements on iTunes

Apple has just been ordered by a federal jury to pay $532.9 million USD to Smartflash, a Texas-based patent licensing company. The jury in Tyler, Texas, the same city where Smartflash is based, reached a decision that Apple had infringed on three patents owned by the recipient — digital rights management (DRM), data storage and payment systems — on its iTunes software. The licensing company sought $852 million USD in damages, which Apple refutes were from invalid patents worth only $4.5 million USD. In a statement to Bloomberg Business, an Apple spokesperson said, “We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system.” Apple plans to appeal the “excessive and unsupportable” decision.